Roddenberry wanted a director, not a co-creator. Butler said, “I remember thinking that Gene was too far into it. Too close to it. So I just gave up.” (26-2)
Or, rather, gave in.
Next, Roddenberry and Butler needed a cinematographer. The problem was, the official “pilot season” fell between March and May. Desilu had entered the game late. By November, both the new series and the older ones that had gotten their network “pick up” were well into production. All the best people -- almost all the people worth having -- were unavailable. Almost, but not all.
William E. Snyder, 62, was on hiatus from Walt Disney Studios where he was signed to a contract. Snyder was a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Cinematographer in the 1940s (Aloma of the South Seas, The Loves of Carmen and Jolson Sings Again). His film credits also included a movie that received no nominations of any kind: the 1954 cult sci-fi monster bash Creature from the Black Lagoon. He had also photographed Moon Pilot, a 1962 Disney space comedy, and this gave him the credentials Roddenberry was looking for. Disney, as a favor to NBC, the home of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, agreed to loan Snyder out, making him a key Star Trek player -- as director of photography.
For the position of associate producer, Roddenberry turned to James Goldstone for advice. Even though Goldstone declined the invitation to direct, he did introduce a second key player to Star Trek -- one, who in time, would become among the most important.
Herb Solow and Bob Justman (Used by permission of Robert H. Justman)
Robert H. Justman had been in show business for 14 years, working his way up from production assistant to associate producer. Before that, he dealt in farm produce.
“I had been buying and selling fruit,” said Justman, in his last interview, given for this book. “That was my father’s business -wholesale fruit. But World War II saved me from that. Not right away. I’d been sitting around waiting to get called in for service. And it got to be the summer of 1944 and still no call. So I went into the draft board and I said to them, ‘How come you haven’t called me yet?’ The guy said, ‘You don’t have to serve; we have plenty of guys like you,’ meaning, guys they didn’t think they wanted. I had been found to be 4F because my eyesight was so bad. I said, ‘But I want to go.’ I raised so much hell that they agreed to re-examine me. There were a bunch of near naked guys getting examined in this large room and some doctors who were sitting behind a table, saying, ‘Take off your clothes, go to this room, go to that room, go to that other room.’ So I went to ‘that other room,’ and was re-classified A1-Specialist, which meant I finally went overseas, into the Pacific, as a radio operator on a destroyer escort. My ears, as they found out, were fine.” (94-1)
After the war, Justman returned to Los Angeles to attend college. “I went to UCLA for a couple of years but, in that time, I hadn’t learned anything I hadn’t already known from my high school education in New York, so I ended up doing what my father wanted me to do -- going to work in his firm. He sent me to Texas, then back to California, then out to various other places around the West, and I wasn’t liking it at all. Most of these places had no culture, like Imperial Valley, with the temperatures at 110° and 115°. So, after doing my rounds one time, after I had made a lot of money for the company, I decided it was time to quit. I woke up one morning in Phoenix and said, ‘Today’s the day.’” (94-1)
A family friend had been working at Motion Picture Center on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood (the facility where I Love Lucy would soon film its premiere season), and offered Justman a job as a production assistant on the latest Joe Palooka boxing picture -1950’s Joe Palooka in the Squared City. Justman later said, “As word spread that I could do my job, and do a few other people’s jobs while doing my job, I was seen as being someone in demand, and went from production to production to production.” (94-1)
These were B-pictures, such as 1951’s The Groom Wore Spurs, 1952’s Red Planet Mars, and 1953’s Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd. Justman said, “I did have a great career as a production assistant. So much so that I finally priced myself out of the production assistant business. I started at 50 bucks a week and I was up to $150 and then $175, which was more than a second assistant director made in those days. So I took the next step and became a second assistant.” (94-1)
The only way a P.A. gets to be a second assistant director is by proving himself invaluable. Justman did this in no time and found himself in the Screen Directors Guild union as a second assistant in television for the 1953 sitcoms Life of Riley and The Loretta Young Show. The second assistant’s job is to prepare the set for the director, making sure all crew and cast members are present and ready to do their jobs. But the goal of every second assistant is to get to be first assistant.
Justman said, “After a couple years, I wrote to the Director’s Guild and asked for a hearing. They agreed to hear my case, knowing full well that the only way you could make a move from second to first assistant director was if you inherited the job, or if you had been nominated by a major studio, and the studios were only entitled to nominate one person a year. Well, the Navy didn’t want me in 1944 and the Screen Directors Guild didn’t want me in ‘54, but I’d changed the Navy’s minds so I figured I might be able to change the minds of those on the assistant director’s counsel. I had worked with a number of these people who were on the board, including Bob Aldrich. I went before them and pleaded my case. And, with fair dramatics, I said, ‘I will not use the Taft-Hartley Law to get into the Guild; I will get in on my own merits or not at all.’” (94-1)
The Taft-Hartley Labor Law, also referred to as the “slave labor law,” was enacted by Congress in 1947 to protect workers from having to work too many hours for too little pay. Justman was making a joke, but this hardly seemed the place for it. He remembered, “They said, ‘Wait outside, please.’ I went outside and closed the door and sat there in my best suit and regretted what I had told them when I was in there. And I said, ‘Asshole, why did you have to do that to yourself?’ I figured that all was lost. After about 20 minutes, the door opened to the Board Room and I was brought inside to be given the bad news. Bob Aldrich got up from his chair, stuck out his hand and said, ‘Welcome, brother.’ Feeling I had behaved a bit like an asshole before, I remember thinking, ‘I hope I’m not expected to behave this way too often.’ And that’s how it all started. I went from feature to feature to feature.
“There were a number of memorable films, and some not so memorable. I worked with people like William Wellman [on Blood Alley, starring John Wayne], Lewis Milestone [on Mutiny on the Bounty, with Marlon Brando] and Allan Miner [on The Way Back, with Anthony Quinn]. And I did a number of films with Bob Aldrich [including Apache, starring Burt Lancaster]. We had a great time together.” (94-1)
Daily Variety in 1956 reported one such great time:
Actors really put their hearts into it on the set of the Robert Aldrich production The Fragile Fox yesterday [renamed Attack when released later that year]. In a scene calling for Yank soldiers to browbeat a captured Nazi soldier, the Nazi bit was enacted by Robert Justman, first assistant director on the film -- the man responsible for all the early morning calls.
Justman was also in great demand in television. He was so appreciated on The Adventures of Superman that he not only worked as A.D. but also, at the same time, as associate producer. This new position was greater than the title implied. Today, the screen credit more accurately reads “producer” or “line producer.” Justman’s job was to beg, borrow and steal to keep the show running with too small a budget, too short a schedule, and too lean a staff. And he did this 39 times a season.
After two years of wearing two hats and feeling exhausted, he removed one hat, then left the series and returned to being just an A.D., for My Friend Flicka. At this time, Justman hooked up with fellow A.D.s Leon Chooluck and Leonard Shapiro and, in association with the Screen Directors Guild, formed the “Assistant Directors Roundtable” to survey and analyze problems pertinen
t to that aspect of film production. Within a few years, the roundtable was an official branch of the SDG, with Justman as Vice President.
In 1958, MGM hired Justman to exclusively work for its various television series. That year, he served as assistant director on Northwest Passage and The Thin Man. The following year, he continued with these shows and was assigned a third, Phillip Marlowe. In 1960, MGM rewarded Justman for his hard work with more hard work, naming him “Production Liaison Executive” for TV’s National Velvet and, in1961, the same post for Dr. Kildare and Father of the Bride, simultaneously. Other series Justman involved himself with during his tenure as Production Executive were The Islanders, Outlaws, Cain’s Hundred, Stoney Burke, and The Outer Limits. For the latter, he also became associate producer.
When Roddenberry was looking to staff his Star Trek pilot, The Outer Limits -- the only series in 1964 dealing with science fiction and its requirements, such as specialty makeup, strange costuming, props, sets, effects and eerie music -- had just been cancelled in the middle of its second year. Taking James Goldstone’s recommendation, Roddenberry contacted Justman, offering him the chance to line-produce “The Cage.” Justman was tempted but didn’t feel knowledgeable enough in the area of optical effects to accept the position. He did, however, agree to work in the capacity of A.D. and recommended someone else as associate producer; someone more experienced who he had met on The Outer Limits.
Byron Haskin was 65 and had a long list of screen accomplishments. A cinematographer from the silent era of motions pictures, Haskin had also helped with the development of sound for film. In 1934, he shifted his professional emphasis to special effects. In this area, he was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one for Technical Achievement in 1939. Haskin then proceeded to add “director” to his resume. In 1950, he helmed Disney’s first live-action feature, Treasure Island. Three years later, he began a long and rewarding association with producer George Pal and entered the realm of science fiction, directing 1953’s The War of the Worlds. More science fiction followed with Conquest of Space, From the Earth to the Moon and the cult classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Immediately following Crusoe, Haskin directed three episodes for The Outer Limits, including “Demon with a Glass Hand,” scripted by Harlan Ellison. Now, with Limits folding, Haskin agreed to meet with Roddenberry.
Running into Justman on the Desilu lot, and not knowing who had recommended him for the job, Haskin commented to his friend, “I'm gonna see some guy with a really weird name, Rodenberg or Rosenberry... or whatever. I don't know. Probably another rank amateur who doesn’t know diddly and wants me to save his ass.” (94-8)
Haskin, impressed by the rank amateur's concept and commitment to quality, agreed to join the team and save “Rosenberry’s” ass. It would be a stormy union -- just one of many.
Matt Jefferies and Pato Guzman, designated as production designer and art director, respectively, were already deep into their work. Before filming of the pilot could begin, Guzman, homesick for his native country, returned to Chile. It was another tough break for Star Trek. All the competent set designers were already otherwise engaged … almost all.
Franz Bachelin, 68, was old enough to have served as a German fighter pilot in World War I. He was also old enough to have been designing film sets in Hollywood since 1937. Among the jobs he tackled: the POW camp sets of Stalag 17, the fantastic worlds of The Magic Sword and the inner world of Journey to the Center of the Earth (for which he received an Academy Award nomination). Now Bachelin wanted to retire, which is why he was home on the day Byron Haskin called. Bachelin was told this last job would be fun, a mere month’s work, and then back to retirement well in time for the holidays. He took the bait. By doing so, the old pro with the German accent would take everything he had learned in the past and turn it upside down. Literally.
Roddenberry was fond of telling the story of how the foliage brought to dress the alien planet set was just too earthlike. He complained. Different and more exotic plants were located. He complained some more. The trees, bushes and flowers still looked like they had come from Earth. Completely frustrated with the situation, Roddenberry pulled one of the plants from its pot, turned it upside down and shoved it back into the soil, roots sticking up. “There,” he said. “Now there’s an alien plant!” (145-4)
It was pure Roddenberry -- fighting the system, standing alone, showing his well-meaning but ignorant colleagues the right path to the future. It made a great story. It also made veteran professionals like Franz Bachelin and Byron Haskin grind their teeth.
One crew member who clicked with Roddenberry from the start was the man behind the yet-to-be-seen Star Trek mini-skirts. William Ware Theiss, at 33, had done his time without screen credits as an apprentice in motion picture wardrobe departments, including a six-month stint at Universal working on films such as Spartacus and The Pink Panther. In 1964, Theiss was still toiling without credit, this time as an assistant costumer for Screen Gems. One series was a sci-fi sitcom about a Martian living on Earth.
Interviewed in 1968 for Inside Star Trek, issue 6, Theiss said, “On My Favorite Martian, I came in contact with Ray Bradbury’s production secretary and was offered the job of costume designer for ‘The World of Ray Bradbury,’ three one-act plays. One of these was an adaptation of his famous short story, ‘The Veldt,’ which offered a marvelous opportunity to do lavish futuristic costumes.... As a result... a smart alec secretary whom I had met while at Universal -- D.C. Fontana -- called me to the attention of Gene Roddenberry.”
Fontana said, “A friend introduced us, and we thought alike about many things. I knew he was gay, of course, but we were really good friends. Gene was muttering about costumes again, and I said, ‘I have a friend who does costuming.’” (64-4)
Fate smiled on Star Trek. Theiss would prove to be the perfect man for the job. Among other innovations, he had a theory that the sexuality of a woman had less to do with the amount of skin exposed and more to do with the likelihood of her clothing slipping off. He said, “Clothes, since the mid-19th-century, have become less and less bulky, cumbersome, protective -- both physically and morally -- and headed faster and faster apparently into complete nudity. This does not mean clothes of the future will be non-existent or that people in the future will be nude, [but] I can only deduce the future will bring literally thousands of style changes and nudity will be one of them.” (172-3)
Roddenberry liked the cut of Theiss’s out-of-this-world fashion sense, reflected in the scanty attire worn by a green-skinned dancing girl. The distinctive gold and blue velour shirts started here, as well. The RCA color TV-friendly red shirts had yet to be introduced.
This new Star Trek universe required more than spaceship designs and futuristic wardrobe. There would also be gadgets -- and creatures. Again, the sudden demise of The Outer Limits became a blessing for Star Trek.
Wah Chang (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Wah Chang, at 46, had already designed masks and headdresses for many films, including The King and I and Cleopatra. Chang started making monsters in 1953 for Cat Women of the Moon. For that “classic,” he created and operated a spider puppet. In 1960, he designed the title object in George Pal’s The Time Machine. In 1963 and ‘64, he was making strange creatures for The Outer Limits, some of which would, with slight modifications, turn up on Star Trek. Among his contributions to “The Cage” were the huge rubber heads of the Talosians, complete with pulsating veins, as well as the now famous flip-open communicator and tricorder.
Also added at this time was Fred Phillips, Star Trek’s primary makeup artist. He was 56 and had worked on The Wizard of Oz. He was “second chair” then, but “first chair” in TV, where he shared the chores with John Chambers on 49 episodes of The Outer Limits.
With these additions, Roddenberry was able to turn his attention toward the cast.
Joe D’Agosta, who handled casting for The Lieutenant, had just accepted a job at Twentieth Century Fox. Star Trek looked better to him but he couldn't
throw away a weekly paycheck for a job that might only last a few weeks. D’Agosta recalled, “Gene suggested we do it on the phone. I would tell his assistant who to call in and they’d come in and then Gene would call me and we’d work out the selections. And when it was over, he actually sent me a check for $750. That was big money for me!” (43-4)
For the Captain, now named Christopher Pike, Roddenberry wanted Lloyd Bridges, best known for the Sea Hunt series. When offered the part, Roddenberry recalled Bridges saying, “Gene, I like you, but I’ve seen science fiction and I don’t want to be within a hundred miles of it.” (145-11)
Bridges hadn’t just seen science fiction; he had been burned by it. In October 1962, Daily Variety reviewed The Lloyd Bridges Show, where the star played a newspaperman who gets involved in various adventures, including, for the episode being scrutinized by the trade magazine, becoming an astronaut and landing on a strange planet. The tale was co-written by Barry Trivers, later to write for Star Trek. The critic slammed the episode, calling it “sluggish... overlong... preachy.” Less than two years had passed and Bridges was not anxious to be shot into outer space again.
More names on the list were Peter Graves, Rod Taylor, Mike Connors, George Segal, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Warren Stevens and William Shatner, among others. After NBC had their say, a short list appeared with just three names: Patrick O'Neal, James Coburn and Jeffrey Hunter. Robert Butler said, “I did not know Jeff [Hunter], and I thought he was probably a good, chiseled hero for this type of part. He was an extremely pleasant, centered guy, and maybe decent and nice to a fault.... I remember thinking, ‘God, he’s handsome,’ and this was sadly the opinion of him at the time. When one is trying to bring reality into an unreal situation, that usually isn’t a wise thing to do -- to hire a somewhat perfect looking actor. You should find someone who seems more natural and more ‘real.’” (26-2)
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 10
